The Nick Ashley Trophy, Lent Term 2026

1. A ladder was set up of players who wished to compete at the start of term. Late entrants to the ladder entered at the bottom. The current ladder was displayed on the CUTwC website.
2. Players could challenge anyone up to 3 players above them on the ladder, provided that (a) this was not the last person they played a match against, and (b) this was not the last person that they challenged. The organiser should have been e-mailed details of the challenge.
3. The higher player was only allowed to refuse a challenge if they already had a ladder challenge to play (also see point 8).
4. Match results were decided by points gained from 2 games, though players were free to agree alternative numbers of games for the match (e.g. just a single game, or a marathon 5 game match). In the event of a tie, the result was decided by a pot-out competition. The organiser and web site maintainer should have been e-mailed details of the match result (including game scores) so that records could be maintained.
5. If the higher player won the match, there was no change in ladder position.
6. If the lower player won the match, they tppl the ladder position of the higher player, and the higher player dropped one place in the ladder.
7. Matches had to be played outside Wednesday meetings within 7 days of the challenge being made. If not played within 7 days, the organiser would either demote both players one place in the ladder, or demote the player deemed most responsible for the delay one place in the ladder.
8. Players may optionally have accepted a second challenge and played it before the first challenge should this have been convenient. The prior challenge should have still been played (even if a change in ladder position had occurred that would normally make it invalid).
9. Whoever was top of the ladder at a particular time should have proudly displayed the trophy in their room.

It was decreed that rule 2 meant that a player may have challenged anyone up to three places above at the time of the challenge, but that rule 6 applied to the position of the players at the time the match is completed. Rule 8 is not entirely clear on this, but it allowed an individual player to jump a large number of places in a single match, by delaying a game with a prolific opponent. Participants were asked not to game the system (or refuse a challenge if they felt their challenger was doing so when they already had a challenge in flight). Alternative solutions may have required better tracking of when challenges are placed (and thus their ordering) than we seemed to have.

Players may have asked to borrow equipment from the Club if necessary (and asked Emmy) — but must have promised to return equipment at the following CUTwC meeting. Matches did not need to be played on full-size tables — but could have taken place in student rooms, College bars, wherever was convenient. Players should have sportingly decided umpiring decisions themselves, or tossed a coin to adjudicate if it really is too close to decide. Players should have noted that 2 games of singles could have been played in 1 hour.

Lent Term 2026: Finley Walsh was the organiser of the Ladder competition for this term, and should have been reached out to if email addresses we needed.